Archeologists know that the ancient Egyptians had the skills to forge bronze and copper tools. Stonemason Roger Hopkins takes up a copper chisel, which works well when carving sandstone and limestone rock, to see if it might carve granite.

"We're losing a lot of metal and very little stone is falling off," observes Hopkins, which is hardly the desired result. Hopkins' simple experiment makes this much clear: The Egyptians needed better tools than soft bronze and copper chisels to carve granite.